Chapter 13
Distractions

In a dark corner of Kururu's lab machines hummed a tuneless drone under the chatter of clicking keys. The hacker's yellow fingers were a near blur as he typed. The monitor's light reflected his visage, and was in turn mirrored upon his swirled glasses and beneath: the golden eyes flickered back and forth in minute movements. He tapped and muttered. He shifted functional iconics back and forth, forth and back. A moment and a few silent footsteps later, his was not the only face reflected upon the monitor. A half-lidded, almost bored stare watched him work. Kururu 'hmph'ed when he realized he had an audience, but continued coding. Although the lidded eyes of his unexpected companion appeared uninterested, they were scanning the on-screen mess of text and numbers.

Hanene barely diverted her eyes from the glowing text. "Oh, that's a Lanthum-series outline recognition algorithm?" the aquamarine frog announced. "I haven't seen one of these since my Basic Training texts."

The voice jolted him. A reflexive nervous twitch caused his fingers to slip and skitter across the keyboard. Random characters jotted into the program. He quickly clicked undo and the unintentional coding error vanished. "Kukuku. Recognize it, do you?" Kururu drawled. "I wrote that textbook", he added proudly.

He spun in his chair and shrugged at the wing-capped frog. "Yes, Sergeant-san wanted something that can be used to identify 'the bitch' if she ever invades our base again." He brought his hand up to his mouth, pleased with himself. "Kekekeke... I hook this into the security and weapon's systems to bridge them, and then..."

"Globulously," she interrupted with a roll of her eyes ceiling-ward. "Like I said, I did read the book."

Kururu's brow ticked forcefully and the left lens of his glasses cracked. He snorted in annoyance and turned abruptly to face his monitor and code. He resumed his typing, heedless of the shattered lens.

The aquamarine frog curiously appraised the remainder of the half-lit laboratory. There were shelves and shelves of broken or unfinished items lined up by size and complexity. Squatting down low, she picked up a small softball-sized gadget and straightened. She studied it from all angles. It was an oddly compact device, covered in slits, knobs and softened edges. The sphere-part made a clinking noise as she shook it, as if there was a piece loose within.

Kururu heard the noise and turned to look at what she had found. He scoffed derisively. "That device is out of your league of technology," he drawled as she turned to face him. "You could never figure out what it is," he cackled.

Hanene leveled a stare at him, which he easily returned. There was no innocence in her eyes, unlike those of another empty-headed, would-be planet-destroyer he knew. But even as he sneered at the fem-frog, he felt a a feather tickling the inside of his skull. The feathery touch built and built into a painful headache and then the agony abated as swiftly as it had arrived. Something clicked in her features. To his surprise, she reached into his workbench drawer, rooted around the tangled lengths of biowire and tubing, and procured a very small tool kit. Kururu raised one brow behind his remaining lens.

"It's so well organized," she answered to his unspoken question. His confusion turned to amusement as she set to the device with a will.

She'll never figure it out. The hacker resumed coding. "Have fun screwing it up. It'll just make it more interesting to fix, seeing all the things you did wrong to it," he called over his hunched shoulders.

A not inconsiderable amount of time passed as they both worked. His steady typing and her clinking and scraping of metal filled the otherwise silent air. Kururu was well into the debugging of his code, when he heard a delicate whir. To his shock, something whizzed past his head and clunked against his monitor. The device immediately sprouted four metal legs and began to walk about on the vertical surface, blinking at him with a wide beady eye. He glared consternation at Hanene, but she merely looked pleased.

She shrugged her explanation, "I saw something similar before in a visual program."

The hacker coughed derisively. "A likely story."

The aeronautical frog smiled as if she knew something that he didn't. She held out her hand and chirruped. The flying spy-spider retracted its legs into tiny propellers and returned to her immediately. She shut it off and bent at the waist to return the repaired contraption to the lowest shelf where she found it.

The yellow frog's annoyed face suddenly flushed red-orange. As he watched, Hanene's skirt rode up as she bent lower and lower with her legs straight. Her stance gave him a generous view of what lay hidden beneath the pleated fabric. She straightened, and Kururu quickly turned back to his monitor and began to type at a fevered pace. Hanene glanced at him once more, and a sly look spread across her features.

With a jerk and a messy clatter of his fingers across the keyboard, he found himself swiveled around in his chair, face to face with his new comrade. As he watched, mouth agape as much as his buckteeth would allow, she slid her helmet off of her head and untied the bun of her hair; the auburn curls spilled out and about her shoulders. She flipped the soft leather, reversible navy blue and gray cloud-studded leather cap with the wing-shaped flaps onto the shoulder of his chair. Wordlessly, she leaned close over him, almost nose to nose with the hunchbacked hacker. Her blue-green digits trailed down his sweating forehead and cupped his cheek. She writhed fluidly above him in a quasi-lapdance, gyrating closer and closer, her flesh contacting his at chance points of his shoulders, chest, chin and belly. Her knee slid deftly between his shivering legs, which wrought a choked gasp from him. His brow furrowed and the remaining lens of his glasses splintered.

She touched noses with him and peered through the pair of shattered lenses. He could almost taste her words as she spoke them. "You have the most beautiful golden eyes."

With that, she disentangled herself from the stunned frog, returned her hair to a bun and replaced the cap upon her head, navy blue side up. The sliding door opened for her; she turned to flash him a wink as the door slid closed.

Much time passed before Kururu moved. When he finally did will himself to action, he swiveled in his chair and opened one of the many drawers of his computer desk. Within were several pairs of his signature swirly lenses; he replaced his shattered pair with a new set. As soon as his surroundings were no longer a cloudy blur, he minimized the code editor and immediately archived the last half hour of personal security footage into his porn collection.

"Looks like I won't need goats for awhile. Kukuku..."

----

Hanene stalled her approach at Fuyuki for hours. She had learned from Keroro's briefing sheets that Fuyuki was addicted, obsessed with all things paranormal. He often had his nose in a book and it took a lot to get his attention. I know how to get his attention, Hanene thought confidently as she knocked on the door labeled 'Winter.' After a minute had passed with no movement from within, she tried again, this time banging it with her small fist.

The knock, repeated several times, seemed to work, as there was a surprised yelp from within, followed by the sound of fluttering paper. "Coming!" he called, opening the door soon after. He instinctively looked down, expecting Sergeant-san to be there awaiting him, but the Keronian that was there was in every way not him. Her color--he could easily tell the Keronian was a female by her eyes--was the color of the sea. This must be the new frog! His excitement was palpable. His smile encompassed his face.

Hanene's hooded eyes regarded him for a moment before she lifted her skirt in a curtsy. "Good afternoon, Fuyuki-san. My name is Senior Airman Hanene. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

"Wow, I've been waiting to meet you!" Fuyuki exclaimed, his voice bubbling with curiosity. "Keroro hasn't told me anything about you, because he says he doesn't know anything, which I think is ridiculous, because a Sergeant should know his team certainly!"

You'd think so, Hanene smirked, but I'm learning that "think" and "Keroro" rarely go together in the same sentence without shoving a "not" or a "badly" in there somewhere. "I hear you like the paranormal?" It's as good an opening line as any...

"Oh yes," Fuyuki replied. He opened the door grandly so that she could see the star charts that adorned his walls, the photographs of UFOs and aliens that adorned his bedside table - some fictional, some Keronian, some familiar and local to the Milky Way and some not - and the collection of demonology tomes and summoning apparatus. "I'm just reading up on special abilities evolving in humans." Fuyuki wasted no time learning about his newest friend, "I know the other Keronians have their own special powers. Could I ask what your enhancement is? Did you evolve it or implant it?"

Hanene was silent, then she shrugged, just as a voice entered Fuyuki's mind. I suppose I could tell you, she mindspoke to him, then was bemused as Fuyuki's jaw dropped in shock. But you have to promise not to tell--

She was cut off by a sudden buzzing behind her brows. Her mind filled with the scream of angry hornets. Her eyelids flew open and her eyes crossed: confusion, thoughts upon thoughts in layers and subtle shadings all mixed together and overwriting in a stupendous muddle assaulted her mid-brain: Wow how are you doing that is that telepathy that is so amazing I heard of a group of aliens that reside in Orion's Belt that have telepathy but I never expected to meet an alien with that power how do you do it is it in one part of your mind or do you use your whole mind humans only use 10 percent of our brain do you think we could use telepathy if we used our entire brain is it genetic or a certain type of keronian or could any keronian learn it are there classes I wish I could take a class for telepathy do you have ESP too ESP is one part of telepathy so I would hope so how about telekinesis can you move things with your mind can you show me--

Hanene groaned piteously as she desperately pressed her hands to her earspots, as if that act would stem the flow of Fuyuki's subconscious curiosity. She reeled and fled from the boy. The shouted "Wait!" was unheard as she vaulted the banister and pelted down the stairs. She rounded the corner to the small door under the foyer staircase. She did not so much climb down as hug the ladder with her ankles and hands and slid past the 13 rungs to the floor.

Hanene skidded down the dank hallway and stumbled through the green door into Keroro's subterranean apartment. She slammed the door shut. She flattened her back against the security of the closed portal: her hands braced upon the outer frame as though to bar an encroaching monster. She panted, her face contorted, her eyes bugged.

Keroro looked up from his carefully painted Gundam piece: one among many laid out in order upon the newsprint. He gave the horror-stricken female one curious look before he bent back down to his work. "Oh. Hello. I see you've met Master Fuyuki."

Hanene's pounding headache made her incapable of response.

----

Giroro was aware of the lateness of the hour, and that nearly the entire day had passed, when he was taken from a crowded holding cell to a dimly lit room. The chairs here, as there, were hard and uncomfortable. The air felt as though it came from directly outside - cold and wet. The window was closed. There was chicken wire embedded in the panes and bars spanning floor to ceiling. Giroro recognized an interrogation chamber when he saw one. You shall not break me, Pokopenian scum. I will never reveal the plans of my platoon. Though, come to think of it, no one has asked me any questions of the sort.

He'd been locked in the cage with the other damned or about to be damned Pokopenians for hours. Some had tried to speak to him. He had ignored them all and grunted menacingly when pressed. Eventually everyone had left him alone. In fact, they had backed completely away from him and sat whispering amongst themselves. He'd had a bench all to himself.

He sat on the hard wooden chair in the chamber and waited. He could hear voices beyond the door.

"That's him? That's the vigilante? He looks too small to have smacked the crap out of the guy. You were the arresting officer. Has he offered a statement?"

"No, all he would say when we asked him any question was...", there was a flick of pages, "'Giroro, Keronian Regimental Platoon A12 assigned to Sector Terra One, identification: G66'. No matter what we asked him. He also refused to be videotaped and became resistive."

"Giroro?"

"Yes, just 'Giroro'. No last name. No standing address. Fingerprints turned up nothing in known felons. So, we put him in the drunk tank under observation. Figured he must be wigged out on dust. Did you see the window of the car? He put both fists right through it like he was some kind of Terminator."

"Hasn't everyone by now? Nothing like being in a media spotlight." There was a long pause during which Giroro felt he was being stared through - not at - through. "He doesn't look like he has a dust monkey. He'd be shaking by now. Well, I guess it's my turn..."

And with that, the door opened. A muscular Pokopenian male stood framed in the light spilling in from the door next to the long mirror. He was dressed, not in the uniform with which Giroro was, by now, very familiar, but in a long grey duster. Underneath he wore a collared shirt and a tie, very much like his salariman man-equin. He smiled, "Mister... Giroro. My name is Detective Talbett." He closed the door and crossed to the other side of the room and sat in the chair opposite Giroro. "I'd like to ask you a few questions." He opened his folder and began to ask...

Even Talbett could hear the ruckus on the other side of the door - shouting behind the glass. Suddenly the door jerked open. A Pokopenian in a perfectly pressed silk suit and a perfectly angled black tie with a perfectly starched shirt barged into the oppressively cramped interrogation chamber. He clutched at a black briefcase and held it like a shield. "I represent Mr. Giroro in this matter and this interrogation must cease right now. I'd like a word with my client."

Detective Talbett grimaced, but yielded his chair to the better dressed Pokopenian. He grouchily walked out and slammed the door behind him.

Giroro watched the changing of the guard impassively. One interrogator is very much like another. They shall get nothing from me. I wonder where their knives and torture probes are? Perhaps that comes later....

"So, you're Mr. Giroro?" the male had already snapped open his briefcase and was shuffling through neatly arranged papers. "I'm Daniel Mennings of Menning, Shugart, Wi, Chatham, and Howe."

Maybe they intend to talk me to death. "Giroro, Keronian Regimental Platoo..." Giroro offered.

His identification was met with laughter. "I'm sorry Mr. Giroro, but I'm not a cop. I'm your attorney. You do understand what an attorney is, don't you? I represent you and speak for you in court. I act in your best interest. And what is in your best interest is to get you out of here."

Giror nodded. Indeed. All I want is to go back to my tent and forget I was so foolish.

"Are you aware of what's happening out there, Mr. Giroro?" the attorney made a wide sweep that could have indicated all of New York City or all of Pokopen. "You're a national media sensation. You're the talk of radio, CNN, the local news... people are arguing. Some think you're a vigilante and should be severely punished, but they're being drowned out by a much more vocal faction who are demanding your release and claiming you as 'The Last Great American Hero' or some such nonsense. The woman you saved has been instrumental in press communications. She has gushed at how you stepped out of nowhere and saved her from a carjacker who had murderous intent."

Yes, I was a fool. Do not keep reminding me.

"I am on retainer to Sir Jeff Galifrey. He has asked me to serve as your legal defense." at Giroro's blank look he asked, "Sir Geoffry Galifrey? Don't you recognize the name?"

Giroro chanced a shake of his head.

"Galifrey Video Enterprises? Galifrey Sports Entertainment? One of the 20 richest men in America on any given day?" At Giroro's continued negative he continued, "No matter. I've had a visit with the District Attorney. The media pressure is intense and he knows there's not a jury in the country who would convict you of assaulting a carjacker, especially when the victim of the carjacker and most of the conservative media are calling you a hero. I have arranged for the charges to be dropped at an expedited arraignment tonight."

Giroro swallowed. "Does this mean I am free to leave this incarceration?"

"Well, not quite yet." the attorney nodded and then asked, "What I want to know is where you plan to go from here when they release you?"

"I have a tent across the river," Giroro said vaguely and immediately regretted his words. He bowed his head in shame for having revealed such a crucial operational detail.

"Homeless?" the attorney brightened. He seemed almost cheerful at Giroro's poverty. "Mr. Giroro. This is by far your luckiest day."

It doesn't feel that way from my end, Pokopenian. I have a home under a tree, little money, a broken motivator impeller and I've been detained all day.

"Sir Jeff--that's what everyone calls him--wants to meet with you. He's heard all the witness accounts and given the media buzz surrounding you he'd like to make you an offer not many in your situation would refuse."

"What offer would that be?"

The lawyer handed Giroro a thick sheaf of papers bound in a paper packet. "How would you like to be employed as a professional entertainer for the XWF? One of the 'World's Most Dangerous Men'?"

Giroro took the folder and studied the cover on the sheets. Two Pokopenian males in tights were pictured. One was tossing the other onto a hard fabric floor. Sweat was flying. Blood was smearing the canvas. Both were yowling in silence. They were warriors! Giroro smiled broadly behind the field and showed every one of his dagger teeth. "I am already the Universe's Most Dangerous Man. This will represent a demotion."

Employment! Perhaps this day is not so bad after all.

----

Hanene paused before the massive door. Above her head she read "Summer". From within she could hear sultry music playing and beneath that shallow and anxious breathing. Hanene sniffed at the crack under the door. There was a single scent: Pokopenian female.

Three precise raps on Natsumi's door and the girl herself appeared, looking rather disheveled. She instinctively looked downward and saw a frog the likes of which she had never seen. She was immediately on alert and suspicious at the rather bored stare of the intruder on her privacy. Seconds ticked by as each sized up the other. She's already giving me a headache, she groaned as she stared, and the pale blue frog suddenly winced.

This is my enemy? The poor thing is a mess.

After a minute or more of the frog's sour look, Natsumi, aggravated, broke the silence. "Who the hell are you?"

"Pleased to make your acquaintance," Hanene soothed, her pained look was immediately replaced with the previous quintessential boredom. She held her skirt aloft and performed a curtsy. "I am Senior Airman Hanene. I am here to replace one of Sergeant Keroro's platoon. I know I will not be truly able to take his place, but I hope you will find my company enjoyable as well."

Natsumi snorted derisively, crossing her arms over her chest defiantly. "That stupid frog is needed like a hole in the head!"

Are you referring to Keroro or Giroro? Hanene wondered, but in Natsumi's aggressive demeanor she could not find the answer. "It sounds like you have had many nasty experiences with my new platoon," she offered with a wry grin.

"The stories I could tell you," Natsumi exasperated, lifting her hands into the air by her head, as if to show the enormity of the tales.

"I am all earspots," Hanene said with a lift of an eye ridge, as if daring Natsumi to continue.

The pigtailed girl grinned evilly. Now was a chance to vent to someone else besides her family! She held the door open for the feminine frog. The amphibian accepted the offer. Natsumi had started her tirade even before Hanene was fully in the room. "It all began when I found that green bastard hiding in Fuyuki's room..."

----

Keroro had spread his latest two Gundam kits across the newsprint of yesterday's Osaka shopper. The instruction sheets were to his left, six pages of mods were arrayed to his right. He teased the important pieces from the injection moldings with careful manipulation of an X-acto razor. His small hands were practiced. After 1500 kits; they'd better be, he thought wryly. Every piece came away clean and unmarred. He set each aside. A tuneless humming interrupted his work and he glanced upwards.

Fuyuki was sitting sideways on the opposite couch with his feet up on the armrest and a large pillow stuffed behind his back. He was idly chewing at his nails and gnawing at his cuticles and fingertips. The tome on UFO identification was open across his vertical lap and he was intently studying each page. His wide eyes flicked across the text. His finger departed his lips occasionally to slowly turn the pages - not as though the turning was laborious, but as though each page needed a fond fare-thee-well before being committed to the already-read side of the book.

I don't have the hearts to tell him it's all sludge, Keroro thought smugly. He'd glanced at the book earlier when Fuyuki had first broken the spine. There were drawings of aliens and alien ships that had supposedly visited Pokopen. The craft were ridiculous - none of them could ever fly - at least by any propulsion with which he was familiar. The aliens pictured were equally farcical. He'd seen many real aliens in his journeys and except for the Grays, none even remotely resembled the creative vision of the book's author, who claimed to be telling the truth and further claimed that all of his depictions were based on eyewitness accounts.

The eyewitnesses must need glasses thicker than Kururu's, Keroro mused. He resumed his whittling.

Outside the sliding glass doors the Moai statue stood impassively and implacably and regally regarding them. The top knot was rimed with snow. An icicle had dribbled from the nose tip like glassine mucus. Aki had made Fuyuki promise that he would donate the ancient artifact to a museum and Fuyuki, after a long "Awww Mama..." session had reluctantly agreed. Meanwhile, the statue had a purpose to serve. One of the hollowed eyes was slightly shallower than the other and filled with a putty indistinguishable from the gray granite. Encased within was a small thermocouple-powered videocam...

----

"So this is the boy my Momoka has a crush on, Paul?" said the noted industrialist with a flatly affected voice. He idly stroked his chin and the two day stubble that had grown there. Christmas was his only time home and he enjoyed it most by not shaving. Even though there was no office, no meetings, and his business mobile was switched to a hard off; there was still business to attend.

He had reviewed Momoka's class schedule and grades. He had read deep investigations of all her teachers; he would call away Kisshou administrators from their families, abduct them if necessary and order teachers fired. Only the seventh year biology teacher had at all concerned him and Momoka would not be required to take his class for a year. The only common threat had been that every class Momoka had opted into, every one that she was required to take, included the youth portrayed on the screen.

Paul nodded. "Yes Nishizawa-san. That is Fuyuki."

"He's a bit scrawny, isn't he.." Nishizawa-san pressed and held the zoom and then hit the "enhancement" processing. The title of the book was read from the spine, optical character recognition was performed. An editor's summary was displayed in an annotation bubble. He parsed the description, "Has his head in the clouds too." I wonder what that boy would think if he knew that half of my zaibatsus' patents came from salvaged alien spacecraft? I wonder what Paul would think if he knew what I know about Keron and Keronians? He shifted the zoom while smoothly panning the view to the paunchy, green amphibian bent over the Gundam model. "I see he has the same taste in pets as my daughter. Did they buy them from the same shop?"

Paul nodded. His gaze betrayed nothing. His loyalty was to the father and the corporation, but some secrets were better kept. "They did indeed come from the same place."

No lie there. Nishizawa smiled ruthlessly. I defeated you in battle once, Paul, and now you serve me. You're still fighting me though, aren't you? He looked sharply into Paul's bright yellow eyes. They were entirely and studiously blank. No matter, you aren't my only source of intelligence, and you are a good protector for my daughter. He turned his attention back to the flat panel screen and Fuyuki's image. The boy had sat up and placed the book on the coffee table. He was animatedly discussing something with his "frog". Nishizawa frowned and tapped the screen, "I'm not certain I approve."

Paul suppressed a gulp and said blankly, "Shall I arrange for his disposal sir?"

Nishizawa scratched his chin again. "Your reports say he shows no interest in her?"

"Confirmed, sir."

"Then do nothing for now. If he should show any untoward interest; dispose of him. My daughter seems to have means of getting her way."

"Yes, Nishizawa-san." Paul bowed and at his master's dismissive wave, exited through the double oak doors.

I may not be able to be home any night to help you with your homework and we've never so much as tossed a ball together, but I can still take care of you, daughter... He tapped the screen causing ripples in the liquid crystal display that momentarily distorted Fuyuki's digitized face. I can keep you from making foolish mistakes... He snapped off the screen and followed Paul out the door.

----

Giroro's suit was free even if he was still trapped inside the foamed coffin of the man-equin's chest, with his knees drawn up to his chin - his virtual thighs felt to be at right angles to his back and bent at the knee. Even though he felt the immaculate carpet against the soles of his shoes and the hand tooled leather seat of the well-appointed black limousine against his virtual buttocks; he was trapped and knew it. The interrogation chamber had felt less a prison than the transportation.

The lawyer, Mennings, was seated opposite him with a "taste of the Jack" in an iced tumbler at his left hand. He had offered a similar taste to Giroro and from the medicinal scent alone, the red warrior had declined. Instead, Giroro sat, trying to puzzle out the English printing of the brochure and contract. He wished he had the translator node from his duffel. He understood only a word here and there and when he had said so, the lawyer had laughed and promised him a copy in Japanese, after he met Mr Galifrey.

The exit from the police station had involved a frontal assault on a squadron of camera-wielding Pokopenians, who shoved padded batons in Giroro's face and demanded he answer questions. His lawyer had wielded his voice as much as his briefcase against them and pushed them aside with repeated declarations of "No comment" and "The world will know more of this hero soon enough". Giroro itched to pull his strattaker from subspace and mow a path to the waiting transport. The door was being held open for him and he slid inside and the lawyer had slid across from him. His eyes darted wildly about the transport. A cursory examination yielded no obvious avenue of escape.

"What's wrong?" grinned the attorney. He chuckled, "Never ridden in a limousine before?"

Giroro hadn't known what to say and had merely grunted.

The limousine wound through the slushy Manhattan streets: buildings with windows ablaze, buildings with windows darkened, colonnaded buildings, buildings adorned with piped awnings flowed ghostlike by the polarized windows. The properties gradually became grander and grander, shorter and shorter, and soon Giroro could see the river through the side streets to his left. From memory, he knew they were traveling north. The opposite shore was a pincushion of moving lights and then, suddenly, the broad expanse of darkness of Palisades Park. Somewhere in that nothingness is my tent, he thought. New Jersey is a good place to be misplaced.

The vehicle pulled among the white buildings lining the island's western shore and slowed to a halt at the green awning of one of the tallest. The windows were mostly dark, except for the uppermost floors, whose windows spilled light from all sides. A low-ranked Pokopenian opened the door of the transport and Mennings slid out. He peered back and motioned Giroro to follow. With a deep, bracing inhale of slightly salt and polluted air Giroro did. The door was closed behind him and the limousine pulled away. A few quick steps and they were under the awnings where Mennings was instantly recognized and another door was opened for them. A few more quick steps and they were across the lobby and into the elevator. Mennings punched the highest numbered button and the lift rose. Giroro ticked off the floors as they passed.

"Sir Jeff won't be what you're expecting. Just go with the flow, right?"

Giroro nodded. He was a river. He was melting gelatin. He was damnably anxious and he very well knew it.

The elevator door opened and the lawyer exited. Dumbly, Giroro followed. They turned down a short corridor and Mennings knocked at a thick double door. From within a voice boomed. "Is that our new hero, Danny-boy? Don't just stand there! Come in! Come in!"

Mennings held the door open for Giroro and closed it behind him. He whispered, "I'll be outside if you need me."

The penthouse office was warm, with a frost-misted view of the river. Potted ferns and ficus adorned the corners. One wall was a bookcase sealed behind glass. The other wall was a matrix of color monitors set with chrome trim and divided by dark wood frames. A large central monitor pulsated with heavily pixellated footage of Giroro's "heroism" from several distant, bouncing and weaving angles. On other screens talking heads argued via closed captions. Giroro recognized his name: spoken, printed, scrolling. Before the monitor montage, a pair of overstuffed, swivel, leather chairs were parked. Between them, an ornately carved, dark-wood table bore a single tumbler of some pale orange liquid. Giroro sniffed. Orange juice?

A hand reached out from above the head of the left-hand chair. The nails were clean and manicured. The fingers were thick. The hands were once heavy with muscle: now weakened, but with prominent blue arteries. The wristwatch was tight over thickly corded tendons and tanned skin. The arm disappeared into a cuff of the purest white. The hand motioned him forward, and with a flip of the wrist, invited him to the opposite chair. "Come in, Mister Giroro. Have a seat."

Giroro held back for a second before holding down the heel of his left black wingtip with the toe of the right. He slipped out of the left shoe and then reversed the stance to remove the right shoe. He looked next to the entrance and failed to see the sandals which would be customary wear for treading the floor of a superior officer. The hand had drifted down and lifted the tumbler of orange juice to unseen lips. Giroro sucked in a deep breath. He curled the man-equin's toes inside the thin socks and padded across the heavy natural yarn of the red and gray plush carpeting. He paced to the right and slid into the seat opposite the Pokopenian male he assumed was...

"Sir Geoffrey Galifrey, but you can call me Sir Jeff." The man leaned forward to offer Giroro his hand. Giroro took the proffered pod. The grip was strong, stronger and firmer than it should have been. Giroro tightened his fingers on the others hand and pulled Sir Jeff's arm toward him. Muscles tensed on Sir Jeff's arm and the gripped hands crossed slowly back. Giroro raised an eyebrow and pulled harder; his grip incrementally tightened. Sir Jeff squinted with determination and responded with equal force. Slowly both pulled the other closer and closer until they were forced to rise. Sir Jeff released Giroro's hand and the tension nearly unbalanced the Keronian. Fortunately, the suit's gyros were faster than any reflexes, human or Keronian, and the suit stayed upright.

"Not bad. You're stronger than you look." Jeff flopped back in his chair. Giroro felt for the cushion of his own seat and uncertainly sat upon it. The leather creaked and the springs sagged. He leaned forward and steepled the suit's fingers across his own nose ridge. He trusted the field would represent the pose effectively.

"Look at this?" Sir Jeff indicated the screens with a wave of his hand. "Have you ever seen such saturation coverage of a relatively minour event? Time was when you would have been only local news and I might have offered you a hundred dollars to survive ten minutes with the champ."

Giroro shook his head. What is this saturation coverage of which he speaks? Is it like saturation bombing? He glanced at Sir Jeff, whose eyes flicked from monitor to monitor like a darting and indecisive dragonfly. Indeed, it is. They are flinging worthless shit into the Pokopenian brain non-stop. He did not even glance away to raise his tumbler from the table, nor to replace it. I have seen Keroro do that - be so engrossed by this Entertainment that he cannot look away, but this Sir Jeff? He is different. He is a warrior and this must be his battleground.

"Most of those yabbos would kill to be in the same room with you right now." Sir Jeff chuckled. "They only report the 'news' and they have a very loose definition of what constitutes news." Sir Jeff manipulated controls built into the armrest of his chair and every monitor bloomed and went immediately dark. The lights in the office brightened imperceptibly as the monitors recessed into the wall and bookshelves slid from behind and then locked in place over the screens. "Let's get down to business. Mennings tells me you need work and it just so happens I have a job for you."

"I am prepared."

"Good. If that handshake is any indication; you'll do fine." Sir Jeff rose and wandered over to a small refrigerator recessed next to the books. "Can I offer you anything? Beer, wine, taste of the Jack? Fag? Stogie?" The promoter held open a cigar case laden with tobacco products.

Ah, a trap is being laid for me, I think. Giroro coughed. "I don't drink or smoke." He half-lied. "At least not when there is business to discuss. It is the way of the warrior. A clear head and a clear heart," he finished proudly.

Sir Jeff chuckled and poured himself another tumbler of juice. "You're perfect! I could tell just from those few minutes on the tube; you've a flare for the dramatic. Three-fourths of what my people do is acting." At Giroro's puzzled nod he continued, "The remaining fourth is athletic and travel, and the fifth-fourth is public presence. Yes, yes, that is 125% percent, but that's how much a professional sports entertainer has to commit to the career; if he wants to earn a small fortune in residuals and promotions when I retire him."

I need a small fortune to repair my skimmer and to live while I repair it. "I do not possess a small fortune. I have come here from a distant land with the clothes on my back and little else."

"Why did you leave Japan? What was your previous occupation?"

Now the questions are becoming dangerous. How can I explain that I lost my will to invade Pokopen, that my platoon was commanded by an idiot who cared for conquest only when the humidity rose? These are operational details he need not know. Giroro's thoughts played bumper cars behind his furrowed brow until one crashed through: "It was a fem... a woman. I was her bodyguard and I failed to protect her. She will never forgive me and so I departed. I can never go back, so deep is my shame." Even Giroro was surprised by the eloquence of the lie. Yet something bothered him more than his own lack of candor. "Through what intelligence have you discovered my origin in Japan?" he demanded. At least he did not say Keron! Killing your possible employer is not a good means to end an interview.

Sir Jeff returned to his seat and pillowed back into the deep cushion. He savored another pull from his orange juice and smiled at Giroro's confusion. "Other than your name being a dead giveaway", Sir Jeff winked, "Our circumstances are not entirely dissimilar Mr. Giroro. My father was an Organization man - very hush-hush Cold War stuff - he was stationed in Japan. I practically grew up there and the accents have not changed much - you're from Osaka, unless I've gone completely deaf." Sir Jeff ran his fingers through his thinning red hair. "I was sent home to Britain when I... dipped my wick in the wrong pot. Lots of money paid. Lot's of embarrassment all around. It's been almost 16 years and I can never go back either..."

----

"And you have no idea how incredibly difficult it is to wash dried grape jelly out of your hair!" Natsumi finished, finger-combing her red locks for emphasis. "It was so sticky I thought I'd be going to dreds!" Natsumi lay full-length on her bed, on her stomach, with her knees bent upwards and her feet resting on a pillow which was sandwiched between her calves and thighs. She was dressed only in a long t-shirt emblazoned with a stylized supernova. The shirt reached nearly to her thighs and she had belted it with the sleeves of a ratty old sweatshirt into an improvised shift. The trunk of the sweats hung haphazardly all the way to her knees like a backwards facing apron.

Hanene sat cross-legged opposite the human girl. She was perched upon Giroro's pillow and was listening with rapt attention to the teenager's complaints. She may act like drama is a major food group, but I've learned more about my new platoon in the last three hours than I could have learned from a month of reading Keroro's mission reports. Sweet Keron! He's a self-serving fuck-up? How he ever got this assignment I'll never know... actually I do know. Good ol' Daddy wanted his son to be in a place where he could screw-up without being noticed. Shame that Pokopen has become so strategically important...

Natsumi inhaled deeply and continued. "In a way though, it all worked out for the best. Keroro stays out of my hair..." she giggled and Hanene chirruped, "And I'm dating the most incredible guy in the world." The words came out easily enough, but behind the facade there was an ache behind those amber eyes that the aquamarine frog noticed. There's that pain again. It's the same from earlier...betrayal, distrust, a shattered heart..

"Have you ever been in love, Hanene?" came the sudden inquiry.

Hanene's thoughts disappeared as her cheeks flushed a deep purple, as if the words had raised a bruise instead of embarrassment. She stammered, not quite knowing what to say. Finally, words emerged, "No, I... I don't think so."

Natsumi pounced at the frog. "You have! You have! I knew it!" Her tiny simian nose was inches away from the frog's broad nostrils, and if Hanene couldn't see the excitement in Natsumi's eyes; she could smell the fascination on her breath. Fascination had a particular scent, like curried almonds, and Hanene was almost choked by Natsumi's exhalation.

"No, well not real-l-l-ly." Hanene hid her deepening blush behind tiny hands and thin fingers, then she amended, "There are males I've admired, but that's all."

"Who is it? Tell me about him? Please?" Natsumi was almost begging, pleading with puppy dog eyes, while the words gushed effusively.

Hanene, stuttered, then gulped, then righted her voice and continued. "He's... I've... I've known of him since my academy days. He's really, really smart and sexy and I so much wanted him to notice me, but he was always looking in the other direction." She sighed. "He never looked my way and the few times he did pay attention to me, I got all nervous and made a fool of myself." The sigh deepened into a frown. "I know what's wrong with my approach, but I can't help myself. I've always been a little bit of a bitch. I can't help that. If only... if only..."

Hanene was interrupted by the repeated, punctuated buzz of the front doorbell, then Mois' voice bellowed as firmly up the stairs, "Natsumi! Like, Koyuki's here! You could say, are you ready to go?"

Natsumi sat suddenly bolt upright. "Spit! I forgot! We're going shopping and I'm not even dressed." She unbelted the shirt and scrambled to the closet. Pushing aside sports equipment, and items on hangers, she scanned and selected a blouse and a skirt and haphazardly pulled them on. She rushed to the desk and pushed cosmetics into her handbag. A glance in the mirror told her that her hair was perfect, as always, and she was almost out the bedroom door, was turning the knob before she remembered her aquamarine guest. "Girl's day out." Natsumi explained. "We're going to waste our allowance on clothes. Wanna come with?"

Hanene was tempted, sorely tempted, to say yes. It would be a perfect time to continue my target acquisition. She's just starting to let down her guard. I need to know more of her habits and how she interacts with others, then I could predict her every move.

"Natsumi! Are you coming? All ready? We're ready to goooo!" Mois impatient voice echoed up the stairs. Natsumi opened the door and held it for Hanene with an inviting nod.

On the other hand, Hanene reflected. The less time I spend around that Angolian the better. She is just fucking annoying and stupid and... "Err... no, I have stuff I still have to unpack and there's a metric assload of paperwork waiting for me down at the base."

Natsumi's disappointment was keen. She frowned. "Well, if you're certain?"

Mois call was becoming plaintive with a hint of anger: "Natsu-u-u-u-mi!"

"Maybe next time." Hanene comforted. "After all. I only just arrived. We'll have plenty of time to become friends."

Natsumi gave the barest of non-committal shrugs, one of the slightest and most guarded that Hanene had ever seen, but she sensed what she could not see. Inside, Natsumi did was disappointed. Inside, Natsumi was wishing that girl's day out could be some other day. "Well, yes, I think I'd like that; more time to become friends...." Natsumi bit her lower lip thoughtfully, "Maybe next time. Gotta run." And she was out the door and rushed, hell for leather, down the stairs.

Hanene could hear the distant incoherent babble of voices, followed by laughter, and then Mois whining, and then the front door slammed and the gaggle of girls was gone. She surveyed the disarray of the bedroom: the scatter, the clutter, so unlike the repeated descriptions in Keroro's reports. Natsumi is not the major obstacle I expected, Hanene reflected. She's just a little girl. I should be able to put her on ice very quickly when I need to. Oh, we'll be the best of friends when the comet of KAP falls from above and crushes all your hopes and dreams! Hanene cackled maniacally and then, try as she might not to, she laughed full and loud. She spun about like a top, the spin lifted her skirt and flared the diaphanous cloth outward, like petals on a Morning Glory.

----

The girls took to the mall. They tried clothes on themselves. They admired clothes on each other. They tried on shoes they had no intention of buying. A late lunch was eaten in the food court. They had a four day break and the intended to make good use of it. They chattered and giggled and were so absorbed by Natsumi's tale of last Friday's indoor volleyball game that none saw Saburo approach. He looped his hands over Natsumi's eyes, carefully cupping them to avoid smearing fingerprints over the lenses of her newly-purchased sunglasses. "Guess who hides behind the eyes of an angel."

Natsumi giggled "Do I get three tries?" She craned her head back to look up at him. "What are you doing here Saburo?"

"Certainly! First two don't count." He leaned down and gave her a perfunctory kiss between the nose arch of the glasses. "I followed the wake of broken hearts and the waves washed to the shore at your side."

He slid a padded café chair over to their table, reversed it, and jauntily sat between Natsumi and Koyuki, but slightly closer to Natsumi. His arm slid over Natsumi's shoulder and he hugged her sideways. Natsumi kissed his cheek and he released her. She launched back into her account of the volleyball match. She gesticulated wildly and spoke animatedly as she accurately retold each bounce, spin, and swat at the ball.

She acts like I'm not even here, he thought as he glumly leaned forward onto his reversed seat's backrest, which is just as well since I'm not here for her. He placed his bag of fresh composition books and pens on the floor under his seat. He was aware of the sideways glances he was receiving: longingly jealous ones from teenage girls and nastily protective ones from their mothers. Perhaps I shouldn't have hugged Natsumi. That green-eyed teener over there looks incredibly interested.

Said green-eyed girl flashed him a hand-sign whose meaning was an unmistakable come-on. To Saburo's credit, he didn't blush, but he almost laughed. He locked eyes with her and slightly shook his head. Her gaze fell and she nodded. A few moments later she tried the sign on a muscled soccer player from the year 10, second string. Now, he did nod. Saburo stifled a giggle. Likely there will be some frantic grabbing of clothes in the men's restroom. How I miss that. Ever since word has gotten 'round that I'm dating Natsumi, no girl expects me to say "yes". He glanced over at Natsumi. And I have wanted to.

Natsumi was describing her mad dash to the net and her dive to the floor in a desperate spiking attempt. Koyuki added her own memories to the tale: her own slap at the high spike - a perfect one-two combination. Natsumi complimented Koyuki. Koyuki complimented Natsumi. There's some sadness there in Koyuki, still. Some disappointment, Saburo observed. I wonder if Natsumi notices how much Koyuki wants her? Behind his steepled fingertips, his lips curled into a smirk, Whew, that would be hot, both of them together. It might even make dating Natsumi worth it, to be able to write a poem about seeing that. Natsumi continued her story about the rest of the game.

No, Natsumi wouldn't go for that and I think Koyuki knows it. Still, as Kururu would say, "Thoughts like that and you don't need goats for a month." How long am I going to go without? Well, anything? She still slaps at my hand if I grope too close to her breasts. Koyuki, you and I are in the same boat, paddling up the Natsumi river and always being washed downstream by a flood. He lowered his hands and gripped the back of his chair - one hand on either outer rung and his arms crossed at the forearm. He rested his chin on the backrest and wormed his buttocks backwards to make the pose work.

He was looking directly at Mois and he knew it. She had finished her lunch and was daintily picking at her teeth with the end of a bamboo skewer. She paused to laugh at Natsumi's latest pronouncement and tossed her hair - wasn't it only a touch longer than last year - she nodded and blinked those wide blue eyes. What do I like about Natsumi most? It's got to be the innocence. And Mois has it in spades, and she'll probably have it for the next thousand years... Natsumi's growing into being a dog I don't think I could stand, but Mois, she's going to be this way for all my life. Might be nice to date a perpetual puppy.

He smiled at Mois and noted when she didn't smile back.

----

Friday again, Kururu thought as he peeked around the corner, how I've come to dread Fridays. Hanene had entrapped him in his lab every Friday for 13 weeks. She's trying to seduce me. Why is she trying so hard? That first time was fun, but.. but... He had stayed away from his laboratory all day, much to his consternation. Increasingly frustrated, he hid from her, but with luck, every time he was in her vicinity he was able to evade her. Now just minutes before midnight, he assumed it was safe to venture back into his lab.

The moving slidewalk was long and the standing journey boring, so he slotted a memory stick which stored downloaded rock that seemed to be all the rage in America. He turned up the media player until the music was all he heard. Unconsciously, he swayed and tapped his toe to the rhythm. Minutes into the second song, he passed a rippling section of the wall: Tamama should clean up the time/space continuum when he plays with his dimension holes, he thought. Shit! Wait, that's not a...

Suddenly, the ripple was flung away to reveal a victorious Hanene. She leaped upon her quarry; her yodeling resonation rivaled Xena's battlecry. He turned in shock, holding his hands in front of him in a useless gesture as she tackled him to the slidewalk. He sprawled on his back. The memory card popped from the receptacle and the music stopped. Hanene towered above him.

"Evening, beautiful," she husked slightly breathless as she bent close to him, nearly nose to nose. "I knew you had to come though here sometime."

The slidewalk ceaselessly ferried them forward as Hanene moved; she writhed fluidly above the stunned hacker, in a slow imitation of sex, that touched his imagination, but not his body. She made tantalizing noises, moans and heavy breathing to accentuate her movements. She flashed him. She unbuttoned and re-buttoned, unwrapped and re-wrapped her skirt before abandoning it at her feet. Her tease ended as she threw her head back. The motion tossed off her cap and her auburn curls spilled from their confinement. She posed above him.

Kururu had not moved. He was stunned by her performance: better than that of any professional stripper. She noticed his expression: his jaw gaped, his lenses slowly swirled. She leaned down, close to his headphones, and cupped his cheek.

"If you thought that was good...imagine what it would be like if I touched you," she breathed. Before he had a chance to respond, she was gone. She plucked her cap and skirt from the floor and vaulted the railing to the opposite slidewalk. Only after the slidewalks had separated them did she turn again and offer him a wink and a wave.

Kururu sat up, shakily, just as the slidewalk reached the end, tumbling the frog as he reached sudden stable floor. He somersaulted, tucked reflexively, and cannonball rolled into his lab. The automated doors opened at his approach and he smacked into the opposite wall. One lens of his glasses shattered. He watched, upside down, as the smug female rode away.

The lab doors shut.

The clock ticked over and chimed: a flock of braying sheep announced the arrival of midnight. He righted himself and stared at the door as though he could see through it. He could imagine her laughing at him: at his arousal, at his confusion, at his useless avoidance tactics.

I can't let this continue. She's going to kill me... kukuku unless I do something first.